Jeremy Allison (of Samba fame) has resigned from Novell in protest over the Microsoft-Novell patent agreement, which he calls 'a mistake' which will be 'damaging to Novell's success in the future'. His main issue with the deal, though, is "that even if it does not violate the letter of the licence, it violates the intent of the GPL licence the Samba code is released under, which is to treat all recipients of the code equally." He leaves the company at the end of this month.

Well, he thought about it a bit, watching how things were working out, and then he published an open letter requesting Novell to get out of this deal. Then he gave them some time, and when it was obvious they were sticking to their policy of covering up, he quit.
By then, he did have another job lined up for him, which is quite pragmatic, a value you seem to endorse.